HISTORY OF KELSO

BLACK DOUGLAS In 1313 their occupation was brought to a swift end by a daring and famous assault. Sir James Douglas, better known as the Black Dougals, took back the castle by scaling the walls on its south side. The exploit was related by the poet, John Barbour, in his epic 'The Bruce'. The Black Douglas assembled sixty of his men and, using their black cloaks to disguise their shape, they crept, like cattle in the dark, along the path that runs between the castle and the Teviot. They climbed the castle mount until they reached the foot of the walls and using hooked scaling ladders, they gained the battlements and overcame the guards. Barbour goes on:

Then straightaway they went to the tower Where all the folk were, at that hour, singing and dancing at their ease, Or playing games, as they might please.

Douglas's men stormed into the hall and 'mercilessly slew' the feasting crowd, but then:

The Warden saw how went the strife. (Sir Guillemin de Fiennes his name) And to the tower now he came With orders of his company, And barred the entrance hastily. The rest, that then were left outside, Were taken prisoner or died, Unless perchance some lept the wall. That night held the hall, Despite the chagrin of his foe, His men were pausing to and fro, Throughout the castle all the night Till on the morrow day was light The warden in the tower stayed; The greatest valour he displayed. And seeing that, except the tower, The castle was in Douglas' power He strove with all his might to hold Sent arrows in such quantity That thereby sore distressed was he But, none the less, another day He kept his enemies at bay.

Sir Guillemin eventually surrendered the tower to the Scots in return for safe conduct for himself and his men to England. Roxburgh Castle was of such strategic importance to the Scottish king that it was necessary to destroy it so that it did not fall into English hands. Barbour finishes off the episode:

When (the castle was taken) King Robert sent His brother Edward, with intent To tumble all the castle down, Both walls and tower, to the ground. A full great company took he; And there they worked so busily That very soon both tower and wall Right to the ground were tumbled all.

There are some ruined walls and towers left to suggest the shape and scale of Roxburgh Castle, but nothing whatsoever remains of the mediaeval town that lay on the haugh-land to the east. Even though Roxburgh was one of the four most important burghs in Scotland during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries with four churches to serve it, schools for its children, a royal mint, and a sizeable population, it has entirely disappeared. There is now no trace of any building: no tell-tale changes in the colour of the grass and certainly no outlines of any large structures or the circuit of Roxburgh's mediaeval walls show up at any season of the year. It is an extraordinary disappearance for a town that was, during the reign of David I, as important a burgh as Edinburgh, Dunfermline or Berwick.

Politically the castle and town swung between English and Scots occupation, making it's health and development in no-one's long-term interest. If the Scots were likely to attack and destroy the town at any time, there was no motive for the English to try to build up Roxburgh's trade and her wealth, and vice-versa. Quite simply, neither the English nor the Scots wanted Roxburgh to become too important in case they lost it. The castle and town swapped between English and Scottish ownership over the years between 1311-1460 but the fourteenth century saw the decline of Roxburgh with the militarisation of the Border. Even the burgh's weekly market suffered from competition across the Tweed, with the rising village of Wester Kelso near the wealthy abbey. Roxburgh's stone buildings doubtless fell prey to Kelsonian builders on the lookout for dressed, already quarried stone that lay only a short distance away. Despite the fact that the English restored the castle somewhat in the sixteenth century, the decline of the great mediaeval town of Roxburgh was lost completly by 1649, when its parish church of St James could muster only six communicants.

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